Mary Balogh: First Comes Marriage

Katherine Huxtable had wanted to return to Warren Hall too when she first knew of her brother and sister's plan to go there. She missed the quiet of the country-side, she explained. But Cecily and Vanessa between them persuaded her to stay. She had a host of admirers and would-be suitors - as many as Cecily, in fact. Perhaps, Elliott thought, she did not realize quite how fortunate she was. Many young ladies who were making their debut would have given a great deal to have just half as many.

But one thing was growingly apparent to Elliott. Life might have changed almost beyond recognition for the Huxtables, but it had not changed them. They would adjust - they were already doing so. But they would not be spoiled.

At least, he /hoped /that applied to Merton as well as to his sisters.

The evening at Vauxhall was planned, then, as a farewell party for Merton and Miss Huxtable. Elliott's mother, Cecily, Averil and her husband, and of course Katherine Huxtable were of the party too.

Elliott had chosen an evening when there was to be dancing and fireworks. And as good fortune would have it, it was an evening on which the sky remained cloudless after dark and the air remained almost warm and the breeze was only strong enough to cause the lanterns in the trees to sway slightly and send their colored lights and shadows dancing through the branches and across the numerous paths along which the revelers strolled.

They approached the gardens by river and stepped inside just as darkness was falling. The orchestra was already playing in the central rotunda, where they had their box. "Oh, Elliott," Vanessa said, holding tightly to his arm, "have you ever seen anything lovelier?" Vanessa and her superlatives! Nothing was ever just simply lovely or delicious or enjoyable. "Than the gown you are wearing or your newly cut hair?" he asked, looking down at her. "Yes, I have seen something lovelier. Infinitely lovelier, in fact. /You!/" She turned her face up to his and the familiar laughter lit it from within. "How absurd you are," she said. "Ah," he said, recoiling. "Did you mean the gardens, by any chance? Yes, I suppose they are rather lovely too now that I spare them a glance." She laughed outright, and Miss Huxtable turned her head to smile at them. "Happy?" he asked Vanessa, touching the fingers of his free hand to hers on his arm.

Some of the laughter faded. "Yes," she said. "Oh, yes, I am." And he wondered if this was it - the happily-ever-after at which he had always scoffed and that even she did not believe in. Something that had crept up quietly on them, something that did not need to be put into words.

Except that it would be strange indeed if Vanessa did not somehow /find /words and force him into finding some too.

He grimaced inwardly and then smiled to himself. "Oh, look, Elliott," she said. "The orchestra and the boxes. And the dancing area. Will we dance? Outdoors, under the stars? Could anything be more romantic?" "Absolutely nothing I can think of," he said, "except that the dance be a waltz." "Oh, yes," she said. "Oh, good," young Merton said at the same moment, his voice bright with enthusiasm. "There is Constantine with his party. He said he would be here this evening." Vanessa was so deeply in love that it was almost painful. For though she had answered truthfully when Elliott had asked her unexpectedly if she was happy, it had been only partly the truth.

He had not said anything since that night in the library, and she had been left to wonder if he resented her, if he felt she had humiliated him by forcing tears from him and refusing to leave when he had wanted her to.

Not that he /behaved /as if he were resentful. There had been a certain tenderness in his manner to her in the week since - and even greater tenderness in his lovemaking. And perhaps actions really did speak louder than words.

But she needed the words.

He had not said /anything/.

She was not one to brood, however. Her marriage was many times happier than she had expected it to be when she had taken the desperate measure of proposing marriage to him so that he would not offer for Meg. She would be content with things as they were for the rest of her life if she must.

But oh, how she longed for…Well, for /words/.

How could she possibly be anything but nine parts out of ten happy, though, when she was at Vauxhall Gardens with everyone who was most dear to her in life?

They strolled along the main avenues of the gardens as a group, drinking in the sights of trees and sculptures and arched colonnades and colored lanterns and fellow revelers, breathing in the scents of nature and perfumes and food, listening to the sounds of voices and laughter and distant music.

They feasted upon sumptuous foods, including the wafer-thin slices of ham and the strawberries for which Vauxhall was famous. And upon sparkling wines.

They conversed with numerous acquaintances who stopped briefly outside their box.

And they danced - all of them, even the dowager.

Waltzing beneath the stars was every bit as romantic as Vanessa had dreamed it would be, and it seemed to her that she and Elliott did not remove their eyes from each other while they performed the steps. She smiled at him, and he gazed back at her with that look in his eyes that surely was tenderness.

She would believe it was that. Words really were unnecessary.

But perversely, though she was mostly happy, and that was happier than any mortal could expect to be in this life for longer than a few moments at a time, there /was /that one other part to mar her joy. And it was not entirely due to Elliott's failure to say anything of any great significance since that evening in the library.

For Constantine was here - as he was at almost every other entertainment she attended. And avoiding him was as much of a strain this evening as it had been for the last week and more.

He was as smiling and charming as ever. And as attentive, despite the fact that he had come there with another party. He talked with Stephen for a while and danced with Meg. He took Cecily and Kate for a stroll, one on each arm, and did not reappear with them for half an hour.

Vanessa would have been downright uneasy if the girls had not been together. As it was, she felt - well, annoyed with him and annoyed with herself. For though she had every reason to warn her brother and sisters against him, she had not done so. She would have had to mention Mrs.

Bromley-Hayes if she had, and his theft at Warren Hall when Jonathan was still alive. She was unwilling to mention either, so she had said nothing.

She had avoided Constantine on her own account, though he always smiled at her and would have approached, she knew, if she ever gave him the slightest encouragement. She could have avoided him for the rest of the Season, she supposed, especially as she was going to be away from London for the next week or so. But avoidance had never been her way of dealing with life. When he returned Cecily and Kate to the box and would have returned to his own party, Vanessa leaned forward in her seat. Elliott was talking with a few of his male acquaintances. "And will you walk with me too, Constantine?" she asked.

He smiled warmly at her, and it struck her that it was a great pity she had lost a cousin so soon after finding him. He was undoubtedly capable of great charm. He bowed to her and offered his arm. "It would be my pleasure," he said. As soon as they had moved away from the box, he bent his head a little closer to hers. "I thought you had fallen out with me." "I have," she said.

His face was grave, but his eyes laughed in the lamp-light as they turned onto a broad avenue. He raised his eyebrows, inviting an explanation. "It was not well done," she said, "to introduce Mrs. Bromley-Hayes to me and my brother and sisters and Cecily at the theater. And it was not well done to bring her to Cecily's come-out ball. I expected better of you. You are our /cousin/." Some of the laughter had faded from his eyes. "It was not," he agreed. "I apologize, Vanessa. My intention was never to hurt you or your family. Or Cece." "But you did," she said. "Cecily and Stephen and Meg and Kate do not know that they were exposed to a tasteless indiscretion for all the /ton /to see. But I do. And I was the one most affected, apart from Elliott, whom I assume you deliberately set out to embarrass. Did you assume, Constantine, that I would not confront Elliott with what I learned from Mrs. Bromley-Hayes the day after the ball, though she lied to me? Did you assume that our marriage would be damaged from deep within, rather as a tumor might silently destroy the body? If you did, you assumed wrongly. My marriage has not been destroyed and my happiness has not been dimmed. Though it has in one way. I was happy to discover you when we came to Warren Hall. I instantly loved you as a cousin and I soon liked you as a person. I would have been your friend for the rest of your life and welcomed your friendship for the rest of mine. We could have been /family/. But you maliciously destroyed any such chance, and I am sorry for it. That is all I have to say." All the laughter was gone from his eyes now as he maneuvered her to one side of the path so that they would not be mowed down by a boisterous group that was approaching from the opposite direction. "Anna /spoke /to you?" he asked. "She told you that she was still Elliott's mistress, I suppose? She would not have expected that you would confront him with your knowledge and discover her lie so soon. I am sorry." She looked reproachfully at him but said nothing. "And I must confess /my /lie," he said after a short silence. "For of course I /did /hear about your meeting with Anna in the park. She told me herself. I am sorry, Vanessa. I really am. My quarrel is with Elliott, and I chose to embarrass him without ever considering the harm I would be doing you too. Believe me, that was never my intention." "You have a quarrel with him because he knows you for who you are," she said. "I side with him, Constantine. And your apology means nothing to me. I hope I will never see you again. I will never voluntarily speak with you again." /"Who I am," /he said with soft emphasis as they stopped walking. "A thief and a debaucher, I suppose." A /debaucher/? Was there something else Elliott had not told her, then?